


No Dice

by orphan_account



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Boys In Love, CAN YOU BELIEVE, Fluff, M/M, SO MUCH FLUFF, eddie gets a tattoo, richie fucking loves eddie with his whole heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 10:15:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20208079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Part of Richie hadn’t believed him, couldn’t believe that his germaphobe boyfriend would ever set foot into some rundown tattoo parlor, let alone get a tattoo at all. But here they are.or the one where Eddie gets a tattoo and Richie loves it a little too much.





	No Dice

**Author's Note:**

> we love a tattooed legend 🤩 rlly short little thing i wrote after thinking about pjs chest tattoo enjoy

The tattoo shop that they went to was the only one in Derry.

The white lettering on the brick wall outside is cracking and chipping away, it stinks when they walk inside and Richie thinks that the old building may be infested with mice. If he hears a squeak when he walks in, he doesn’t tell Eddie that. Eddie’s already nervous enough, he doesn’t need Richie freaking him. 

It started earlier that month, when Mike and Stan had discussed getting matching tattoos and Richie had chimed in saying, “What about me and Eds? We’d fucking rock everyone’s worlds with matching tattoos.” Stan had snorted loudly, obnoxiously and Mike had said, “Eddie? Getting a tattoo? Good luck with that one, dude.” 

Eddie, who had been busying himself with playing with Richie’s hoodie strings suddenly snapped his head up. 

“Hey! I’d get a tattoo,” he had said, loud and only slightly offended. 

Part of Richie hadn’t believed him, couldn’t believe that his germaphobe boyfriend would ever set foot into some rundown tattoo parlor, let alone get a tattoo at all. But here they are.

Richie grabs one of Eddie’s shaking hands, and Eddie almost immediately slots his fingers into Richie’s and grips hard. There’s no line, no one waiting on the benches lining the walls of the parlor and that means that there’s hardly any time for Eddie to back out.

“Eds,” Richie squeezes his hand, and Eddie looks up with big, worried eyes. “You know you don’t have to do this, right?”

They’re both interrupted by the sound of a thick book slamming against the counter in front of them, and Eddie jumps at the noise. It says nothing on the cover, but both Eddie and Richie know what’s inside.

Eddie takes a stifling breath, closes his eyes and says, “I wanna do this.”

They flip through the book, Eddie looking through countless plastic-covered pages with still shaking hands. Richie rubs at his arm and looks with him.

“Hey, that one’s cute.” Richie points to a tattoo of a butterfly on some girls ankle. It’s blue and pink and Eddie laughs when he swats Richie’s hand away.

“Fuck you,” he says, but he laughs with it and Richie can’t help but laugh too. “Besides, I’m looking for something with, like, words or some shit. Maybe some stars?”

Richie gasps. “Oh fuck, Eddie get an American Flag!”

“I’m not getting an American flag tattooed on my body!”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because! It’s red, white and blue, it won’t match anything I wear.”

Richie rolls his eyes, tightens his hand in Eddie’s then says “It’s not a shirt, it doesn’t have to match!”

Eddie just flips through more of the pages. It goes on like that for half an hour; Eddie flipping through tattoo designs while Richie leans his head against his shoulder. He’s so tired, and his eyes begin to get heavy with the weight of it. He begins to think that Eddie might be stalling when all of a sudden he slams the book shut.

He shakes Richie’s head off, swallows hard and says, “Ok, fuck it. Let’s do this.”

When the first buzz of the machine whirs out, Eddie’s entire body jumps and he grips onto the chair arms tightly. “Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck shit,” he rambles with his eyes squeezed shut. 

“Richie,” he squeaks out, grabbing roughly at his arms. “Richie, Rich, I’m freaking the fuck out.” 

Richie can tell. His bare chest is heaving and the heavily tattooed man in front of him is giving him a worried look. The machine hasn’t even touched his skin yet and he’s already acting like he’s in the worst pain he’s ever been in and suddenly Richie is freaking out too.

The man buzzes the machine into the ink and Eddie seizes up slightly, clenching his eyes shut again. “Hey,” he brushes Eddie’s hair off his forehead. “It’s okay! He’ll warn you before he starts.”

Eddie peeks an eye open, eyeing the needle that’s being held a bit too close to his chest. “Is-Is that clean? Like is it sterilized? Because if it isn’t I’m gonna have to go, like seriously dude.” 

“All our needles are clean and from packages, we never do sterilization ourselves,” the man explains, more to Richie than to Eddie, “but I’ll warn you this: I myself have gotten many chest tattoos, but shit will hurt like hell if you don’t have lots of chest muscle mass.”

Richie has to physically bite the inside of his lip to silence his oncoming laugh, but no sort of bite can mask the smile on his face. He lets out a quiet breathy laugh through his nose and Eddie whips his head around.

“What the  _ fuck _ is so funny?” Eddie asks and Richie puts his hands up a bit too defensively.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Richie says, but Eddie squints his eyes at him.

“You were fucking laughing! What? Is it because I have no chest muscle mass?”

Richie can’t stop himself this time. His laugh feels like it’s being ripped out of his lungs. It’s the kind of laugh that is silent, no sound but completely hilarious and Richie misses it when Eddie chuckles too. 

They both stop when the artist says “Ready? I’ll give you a countdown.”

Eddie goes rigid again and Richie doesn’t hesitate to grip his hand tight. “You got this Eddie.”

The man settles over Eddie’s chest, bracing his hand against his collarbone and starts the countdown. “1, 2, 3,” he says and Eddie’s hand grips Richie’s almost too hard to handle. 

He lets out a breathy  _ oh fuck _ when the needle touches his chest and Richie is quietly cheering him on. He’s got one hand gripping the seat handle, the other tangled up in Richie’s hand and Richie isn’t sure which one is gonna break first. His hand’s starting to go a little purple in some places, and every time the needle makes a pass over the cursive wording, his grip gets impossibly tighter.

When a tear slips out of the corner of Eddie’s eye, Richie is quick to wipe it away with his thumb.

Richie rests his chin against Eddie’s shoulder, presses a kiss to it when the needle hits a particularly sensitive spot on his chest. 

After half an hour, Eddie’s eyes start slipping closed. 

“Hey, Eds? You doin’ okay?”

“I think I’m gonna pass out,” Eddie whispers groggily, and Richie barely hears him over the whirring of the machine. His eyes go wide, and he brushes Eddie’s hair off his forehead quickly.

“No no no, Eddie. Don’t-Don’t do that, baby. We can stop if you need it?”

Eddie doesn’t say anything back, his head lolling back and Richie is quick to grab at his face. “Hey! Hey, hey. Look at me, just focus on something else, okay?” His eyes are barely open, but they’re there, and Richie watches them focus on his own eyes, wide with worry.

“Your eyes are so soft,” he mutters and Richie laughs.

“What does that even mean?”

Eddie laughs too, weak and it drowns out the needle spilling out cursive ink onto his chest. “I don’t know,” Eddie says, but deep down he knows exactly what he means. Richie knows too.

It isn’t long before the machine stops whirring and before the man wipes at Eddie’s tattooed chest with some sort of cleaning solution. Richie’s still rubbing at Eddie’s sweaty hair, and he only looks down at his chest when he hears Eddie’s  _ shit, dude! _

Written across the center of his chest, stretching a little past his heart, is a cursive  _ No Dice _ . There’s two stars, one on the left and one on the right and Richie knows he’s whipped. He’s such a kid in love. God, he loves Eddie. 

“What do you think?” Eddie asks, admiring the ink in the mirror.

Richie doesn’t even know what to think, but he smiles until his cheeks hurt.

“It looks amazing! Who would have thought our little Eddie Spaghetti would be rocking a fucking chest tat. Unbelievable.”

They both smile dumbly, laugh hard when they get a glimpse of one of the stars through Eddie’s shirt. Mike and Stan can’t believe it, and they both give him a pat on the back when they see the tattoo spilling across his chest. “You look like a game of scrabble that went wrong,” Stan says, but he’s laughing into Mike’s shirt not a second later. Eddie laughs until his ribs ache.

Later that night, when they’re laying in a bed too small for both of them, Richie admires the ink on Eddie’s chest. It’s quiet in Eddie’s room, which means he’s probably drifting to sleep and soon, Richie can’t help but lightly touch one of the stars.

“I love you,” Richie whispers as he traces his fingers over the words, over and over and over again. 

_ No dice, No dice, No dice. _

He loves Eddie, everything about him. He loves his smile and of course he loves his laugh, the way he dresses and the orangeness of his eyes when the sun hits them just right. He even loves this thing that’s permanently engraved in his chest now, because it’s just so Eddie that it makes Richie feel like he’s drowning.

And if twenty years down the road, when Eddie is in his 40’s, if he regrets the words written in ink beside his heart, Richie will love them all the same.

He runs his fingers over them again and smiles dumbly to himself.

_ No dice, No dice, No dice. _

**Author's Note:**

> thank u to the pennygorgang for reading my shit i love y’all 😔✊🏻 anyone that reads this should read To All The Clowns I’ve Loved Before and Allow Me to Exaggerate A Memory Or Two!! 
> 
> love my talented gorlies 🤢


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